Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Justice recently announced a new program to support mental health of jurors who often go through very difficult circumstances in the course of executing their responsibilities through juries. This is relevant to a report put out by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in May of 2018 called Improving Support for Jurors in Canada. That's a House of Commons committee. That committee made 11 recommendations, and one of these was to recommend that provinces and territories offer psychological support and counselling programs without predetermined time limits and the number of sessions left to the discretion of a mental health professional.
So I'd like to ask the Minister of Justice today if this new program that's being rolled out to support jurors will conform to those recommendations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, currently we are using the Employee Assistance Program as a support for jurors that are currently serving. And I certainly appreciate that jury duty is a -- you know, is an honour but also can be a very traumatic and challenging experience.
We are currently working on a new program that will come out hopefully in 2026. And I don't have the specific answer to that but I'm happy to get that information and provide it to the Member to focus in on the detail of that request. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister. As the former jury administrator for the Northwest Territories, this is a deeply-held issue for me because I dealt with so many people in the system who were doing juries. We actually compensate jurors around $80 a day. The same committee report recommends increasing it to $120 a day. Ontario has already done this. Nunavut pays between $100 to $150 a day. This eases with the time commitments required for a jury. Will the Minister increase fees for jurors to $120 a day? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. Certainly, yeah, I can feel the sentiment that, you know, $80 a day does not seem like an adequate level of compensation for a person to give up their time and, you know, it's a tremendous sacrifice not only from a financial perspective, depending on sort of what your employment opportunities are like. Certainly willing to take that back and have a conversation with the department about what that could potentially look like. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. That's less than minimum wage so I hope that we see some progress on that.
Finally, the committee has also recommended that interactions between jurors and other participants in the proceedings be minimized outside the courtroom with special parking spaces, access routes, and including secure areas where jurors can be alone to recharge after hearing, you know, difficult evidence and testimony in the courts. Will the Minister make the necessary changes to the Yellowknife Courthouse, and on community circuit as well, to ensure that those kinds of provisions are in place to ensure that jurors are so minimized from any kind of conflicts with individuals in the proceedings? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll speak first primarily to the Yellowknife Courthouse, and we do have plans in the capital plan coming forward that part of that plan is to address a secure -- more secure parking area. I don't know specifically, as I sit here today, if that will include juror parking but certainly happy to take that away as well and look at what that could potentially look like, as well as -- you know, I'm familiar with very few courthouses across the Northwest Territories and what those facilities look like, but, again, I think in -- you know, our rapidly changing world and our increased level of violence that we see on many, many fronts, I'm happy to, again, take that away and have that conversation with the department and see what potential solutions could be looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
